Arrow

[jgsugden]

I think we're supposed to forget that they promised an impact from the pit - so that when she does something shocking we're not expecting it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Maybe on the flash but the arrow writers don;t get that kind of credit for foreshadowing.

[Threash]

Well she does have the Arsenal uniform now, and some training.

[HaemishM]

I think this season has had some good moments but the take Ra's place story hasn't really worked out well. Plus there's been entirely too much melodrama around the events. Even the end of last week's episode wasn't very suspenseful because we knew they were a red herring, which was confirmed 2 minutes later when we see the trailer for the finale.

[Khaldun]

We saw Amell's panel at Philly ComicCon last weekend and he pretty much came out and said, "with this many episodes in a season, we're kind of struggling not to repeat ourselves". I think that wasn't an issue in Seasons 1 and 2 but you can really see it here--a lot of convoluted moves designed to defer or delay the final plotline.

[HaemishM]

They need more villains. Or maybe break the season up into two major villain arcs as opposed to all of it leading up to one big bad.

Of course, I've never been a huge fan of Ra's Al'Ghul as a villain anyway.

[jgsugden]

Agreed 100%.  They should drop this concept of 'season storylines' and be more organic.  They can have three or four separate storylines playing out over a season, even. 

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I don't think the character benefits from a "Big Bad" by comparison to Flash. I don't mind the idea of a common theme for a season, but that takes some skill from the writers. (I suppose you could say that this season has been somewhat about the consequences of lying.)

[Evildrider]

Really solid season finale.. 

[satael]

I enjoyed the finale despite

[kaid]

I enjoyed the finale despite

They are comic book villains thats how they roll.

[jgsugden]

OK - there are enough references floating throughout the seasons of Flash and Arrow ... I'm calling next season as the Season where we get Green Lantern - and I'm hoping they do it with Hal Jordan handing the ring to John Diggle (as we discover his real dad's name was Stewart)... There have been articles on the idea already, but I think they're setting it up.  Arrow goes full Super next season.

[Evildrider]

I dunno, I think they are pulling our leg on the GL thing.  I really don't see how a GL character wouldn't just totally outclass Green Arrow in everything.  I'd rather see him become like Guardian.

[jgsugden]

I dunno, I think they are pulling our leg on the GL thing.  I really don't see how a GL character wouldn't just totally outclass Green Arrow in everything.  I'd rather see him become like Guardian.

The Flash outclasses Ollie in everything... and Batman in everything... yet doesn't. 

I could see them introducing GL alongside GA.  The characters were partnered for a long time in the comics and it would be a nice nod to the comics as we move from the Longbow Hunteresque era to embrace the trick arrows and super heroics era where the show has moved...

I think Arrow followed the Iron Man moderl pretty well.  Start grounded with a battle against a guy in armor and slowly transition to wars with enhanced humans, aliens and robot armies...

[Threash]

So what are all this Green Lantern nods i keep missing?

[Lakov_Sanite]

The problem is not GL in that universe, it's GL on the Arrow specifically.  As we saw the Flash could take on the entire league of assassins in less than 5min if he really wanted to, I can't imagine GL having much harder of a time.  Arrow only works so long as he is fighting Arrow level villains, remember he's just a batman stand in and generally batman is not fucking around with superman's villains.  Could they make GL it's own show with Diggle starring? Yes definitely but it might be a bit of saturation.  I just don't think they can add GL to Flash or Arrow and not crowd them out.

[Velorath]

I think at this point, when a movie for a lesser known property like Suicide Squad is making characters off limits for TV, they were very lucky to even be able to do a Flash series. I'm not sure they'd be allowed to do anything with GL now. GL's powers also aren't the easiest to do on a tv budget.

[MediumHigh]

Tv version of John Stewart would be awesome. I think Arrow is the perfect show to do the Green Lanterns justice. The idea of a space military 80% hope and justice, 20% wtf Guardians, fits so well with John Diggles character it writes itself. Also pushing Green Lantern gives the show the extra push it needs into the fantastic and with it comes Green Arrow.

[jgsugden]

Read some interviews... they are going more super and less street vigilante. What fit in seasons 1 to 3 is not necessarily what will fit in season 4 or 5. Go back and read what was said about Flash on Arrow.... look at the clip of the pilot from Legends of Tomorrow. It is a new era.

Threash, the references to a disappearing pilot from Ferris Air was the most recent smoking gun. I am pretty sure we'll get some payoff from the GL references...

[Velorath]

Legends of Tomorrow is a shorter season and even then Atom and Firestorm are the only members of the team with flashy powers. Aside from that you've got a martial artist, a woman who can fly, two guys with high tech guns, and a guy who travels through time but is otherwise non-powered.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Going more super and less vigilante seems to be exactly what they are doing on legends and exactly why Oliver will be the green arrow next season BUT having any super sharing a show with oliver immediately overshadows anything he can do.  Fuck, the flash could have solved the entire season in ten minutes if he wanted. 

Introducing GL on arrow is fine and if they do it, it'll be on arrow cause diggle,  however I doubt they would keep him on that show in the long term.

[Evildrider]

Amell has said that Coast City is going to be one of the main locations for season 4 and that he won't be Green Arrow til probably going into season 5.

[Khaldun]

You know, he can be Arrow anywhere BUT Starling, really. Which could be interesting. They have got to figure out how to fix the flashbacks, though.

[jgsugden]

One fix: Stop them. He could go back to the island to do penance and then give one more flashback to show why he decides he is ready to return  and become a mass murderer.

[Lakov_Sanite]

That's the main problem I have with the flashbacks.  We know he gets worse only to get redeemed later but that redemption is already in the past.  The flashbacks are taking him down a dark path from which he's already recovered but with each passing season the character is farther and farther away from it making the constant transitions to his dark past even more jarring.  The flashbacks are by far the worst part of the show and a plot device they should have dumped after season two.

[HaemishM]

After this season, I really hope they cut down on the flashbacks a lot. They just weren't very good or interesting in most episodes, and for as much as they were a part of the episodes, you could have taken them all out and compressed them into one flashback episode and been better off. Going more super in a different city seems like a really good idea. I thought it would have been a great series finale, as I wondered where they could go from there. And yes, I'll eat my hat if we don't see Green Lantern in some form by the end of season 4.

[jgsugden]

Unfortunately, I think the flashbacks are intended to go 'real time' with the show and are intended to cover 5 years... so we may get 2 more years of him getting back on the island and then suddenly going dark in the season finale flashback from Season 5.  I think it'd be hilarious for them to keep the flashbacks going in season 6 with 'b side' stories that took place during the first season but were not shown on screen.... Ollie getting ice cream.  Ollie making arrows.  Ollie finding a tailor to make his outfit.  Ollie catching up on a few years of sports news. 

[Khaldun]

We know he learns to speak Russian and how the Russian mob operates, at any rate. But I think unless they can make the flashbacks a kind of gonzo fun again, they have to drop them.

I'm also hoping they don't really mean that Damian Dahrk is a "big bad" for next season. I was struggling to remember the character at all and then I remembered that he featured in a few early Ra's al Ghul stories in Batman, more or less as an introduction to the League of Assassins/Ra's. Totally uninteresting character.  The only interesting part of the Ra's al Ghul mythos left is really Deadman and Sensei--Deadman would actually work really well in the Arrowverse.

[Tannhauser]

I agree they need to stop the flashbacks.  This whole League storyline was a letdown after seasons 1 and 2.  Bit of a slog.  But at least Ollie exited the season happy.  For the love of god.  I've always liked Diggle, and if they are setting him up to be Green Lantern then that will be really great. 

Malcolm's surprise twist was pretty cool, as was Ray's.  I admit I'm a bit on the fence with this show, but maybe they are going lighter.  Also I have to watch it so the Flash's crossovers make sense.  They also need to drop all 'secret keeping/breaking trust' themes but it's the CW, there's little chance of that.

[Venkman]

Liked it overall, but after so much of grimdark, I don't at all buy Oliver Queen actually being happy, and really thought it was hamfisted how he had to come out and say it. What, the convertible, smart funny hot girl, and driving along the coast in beautiful weather weren't enough to imply that?

I do love the cross overs, but how Flash blew through Nanda Pardat bothered me. Sort of the Superman problem when everyone else in the world is mundane.

I was also out of sync. I thought the episide where they beat Wells was the season finale (would be typical of that show to end that season on a positive note), but catching up on the other thread I had to stop reading. I didn't realize the beat-Wells episode was before Ollie returned to his city with Ra's.

Finally, I agree with others that a few things need to change:

• Fun flashbacks again. They still have two more years of them before the flashbacks catch up with S1E1 I think.
• Trust shit. One season is fine. Two was a stretch. Three's getting bothersome.
• Whiny Laurel. I liked her this season, she's almost there.

I get that it's hard to keep things interesting without unlimited budget for choreography and SFX. But it's becoming a soap opera. That's typical when the ideas run out. But they have decades of source to pull forward. It's difficult but it's not like they need to make it all up from scratch.

[MediumHigh]

Green Arrows better or worse stories depending on how you view him, is the soap opera. The show didn't really pick up until the actual drama started and bee n pretty much carried by the show pushing the interactions between the cast. Except Laurel..... I mean she is the BEST of her type so she doesn't drag the show down as hard (and she is mostly counter balanced by Felocity  ) as say Lana or Iris (i'm really hoping they do something with her where her grief gets her off the damn show).

[Evildrider]

/sigh

Talking at MCM London today, Thea Queen herself actress Willa Holland revealed that the show's producers originally had big plans for Harley on the show - but were shut down due to David Ayer's upcoming "Suicide Squad" movie. She tells MTV:

"Pertaining to all the movies that are being made and stuff like that in the comic book world, it's also taken a side away from the TV shows. Because we had the Suicide Squad and these things inside of it, ARGUS. We were going really heavily into that for a minute.

And then, something must have come down from DC or some higher-up above that said 'No, you must cease and desist because we're going to make it into a movie and we can't have anyone spoil that idea.' We did get to see that little pigtail and the ARGUS uniform and the little treat of Harley Quinn, and it just got ripped away. So if we could actually have Harley Quinn on the show, that would be amazing. But it's never going to happen."

[Khaldun]

DC/Warners has been doing this for a long time now--their suits are apparently convinced that two versions of any character in any programming is too confusing for audiences. It's why Justice League Unlimited wasn't allowed to use Batman villains past a certain point, for example.

It's woefully stupid. I think they're using their own confusion and dimwittery as a guide to "the audience".

[HaemishM]

Fuck the Warners movie people. Fuck them in their earholes.

[jgsugden]

To be fair: How screwed would they be if the TV versions were better than the movie versions?  The movie people would get hammered...

Of course, they're already screwed if people walk away and say that TV Arrow is a better Batman than Affleck, if Supergirl is a better Super than Superman, if the Flash is cooler than Wonder Woman, and if the TV Suicide Squad they murdered was better than the movie version...